The invention relates to apparatus for transporting rod-shaped articles of the tobacco processing industry, and more particularly to improvements in apparatus for changing the direction of transport of rod shaped articles, such as filter rod sections and plain or filter cigarettes, cigars, cigarillos and cheroots. Still more particularly, the invention relates to improvements in apparatus for simultaneously converting several files of coaxial rod-shaped articles into several rows of parallel articles.
It is already known to construct a cigarette maker in such a way that it can simultaneously turn out several continuous cigarette rods which are subdivided into sections of desired length and are thereupon treated in packing, filter tipping and other processing machines. The situation is analogous in connection with the treatment of cigars and cigarillos. For the sake of simplicity, the following part of this description will refer primarily to cigarettes or filter cigarettes with the understanding, however, that the same apparatus can be used with equal or similar advantage for the manipulation of other types of rod-shaped articles of the tobacco processing industry including plain or filter tipped cigarillos, cigars, cheroots and filter rod sections. A machine which can turn out two parallel cigarette rods is disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 1,705,012 to W. F. Grupe.
As a rule, cigarettes which are obtained by severing one or more cigarette rods are conveyed in the form of elongated files of coaxial articles. It is often necessary to change the direction of such articles, for example, in a filter tipping machine which is designed to convert plain cigarettes and filter rod sections into filter cigarettes of unit length or multiple unit length. A modern filter tipping machine is designed to place discrete filter mouthpieces of double unit length between pairs of plain cigarettes of unit length, to convolute uniting bands around the mouthpieces and around the adjacent end portions of the respective plain cigarettes, and to sever the resulting filter cigarettes of double unit length across the mouthpieces and the tubular wrappers which are obtained by conversion of uniting bands so that each filter cigarette of double unit length yields two coaxial filter cigarettes of unit length. To this end, it is necessary to change the direction of transport of plain cigarettes from axial movement to transverse or sidewise movement not later than in the filter tipping machine.
The aforementioned commonly owned copending patent application of Hensgen et al. discloses a transporting apparatus which can be utilized to change the direction of transport of plain cigarettes and similar rod-shaped articles of the tobacco processing industry from axial to transverse. The present invention relates to apparatus which are similar to and can perform the same functions as the apparatus of Hensgen et al.